


This Revolution

by storiesfortravellers



Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Cynicism, Mutant Rights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 08:18:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pyro wonders what the movement will be like after Magneto is gone, and how that will change things with his old friends. Cynical!Pyro who isn't sure what he wants any more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Revolution

**Author's Note:**

> Written for comment_fic on Livejournal, Prompt was Pyro, "Every generation needs its own revolution" - Thomas Jefferson

They say that revolution spreads like fire. You just have to ignite the tensions, and your whole civilization goes up in smoke.

Pyro knows it's not really like that. He knows that the revolution spends most of its time developing infrastructure so they don't have to live like animals just because they're avoiding arrest.

The revolution is about trying to stay out of it when big egos clash, when the 'true believers' literally almost kill each other because one snores too loud or because one took the last beer. It's about hiring local kids to graffiti pro-mutant sentiments on the subway, so that their movement's growth looks just a little more 'grassroots' and less like a dictatorship.

John wonders sometimes, what the movement will be like when Magneto is gone. If Magneto can even die. He wonders what his own generation will do with the half-finished revolution that was left behind like so much scrap metal. Most of his new friends would be happy just to cause mayhem. They would be nothing more than random acts of violence if Magneto didn't keep a somewhat short leash on them.

Professor X, in his own way, was as much of a dictator as Magneto was. A lot alike, really. This wasn't that different from being an X-Men. Less disciplined, less books, but otherwise, not that different. Not nearly as different as John felt it should be.

Maybe it was because Xavier and Magneto used to be friends, John thinks. That's why they were so alike. Maybe that's also why even though this revolution keeps getting cockblocked by the X-Men, there's never a big "kill all X-Men plan."

John's grateful for this.

But it makes him wonder about the future of the revolution. Maybe without Magneto and Xavier, it'll just be murder and vengeance, 24-7.

But then he thinks of Bobby and Rogue and all the rest, and he thinks of all the times they stopped short of killing each other when it would have been tempting to finish the job. And he thinks that maybe, just maybe, their generation's revolution will involve a little less bloodshed. Maybe the revolution will convince both sides to work together, the regular mutants and the ones with big old hero-complexes.

Or maybe, the revolution won't be a revolution at all. Maybe it'll just be death and rhetoric, followed by more death and more rhetoric.

Maybe John would sit the next revolution out.


End file.
